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AI earnings have had a couple of clear winners. The losers list is much longer.
From Amazon’s big disappointment to Microsoft’s beat, here’s the full AI-trade scorecard for Q3.
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Third-quarter earnings were expected to be a referendum on the AI trade : Is demand holding up? Are companies translating big spending into actual results? How are the finances looking?
Now that many of the biggest players have reported, we’ve certainly gotten an indication of how the AI buildout is going. It just might not be in the direction people wanted.
The easiest way to see this is to split out the winners and losers, which ends up being quite a lopsided affair. While there are certainly some encouraging bright spots, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 is still about 6% off highs, down 1.4% since tech earnings season kicked off.
Keep in mind that these are stock-market verdicts, not judgments on which companies had good quarters. In multiple cases, solid results still weren’t enough to quiet the AI-spending skeptics.
Here’s a company-by-company breakdown of winners and losers, including main earnings highlights and lowlights for each:
WINNERS
Microsoft
What happened: Microsoft hit the nail on the head with 48% sales growth in Azure, its key AI-powered cloud business. Capex came in below expectations, while Azure revenue guidance for next quarter also exceeded forecasts.
But while Microsoft was a relative standout and a clear-cut winner, its stock still fell on Thursday as Alphabet dragged the tech sector lower. (More on that lower.)
One-day stock move: -0.2%
SK Hynix
What happened: SK Hynix provided encouraging signs that the AI-memory boom is holding up. The company posted record sales and operating profit , and said it’s already locked in long-term deals for more than half of its 2027 and 2028 capacity. In an earnings season full of AI-return questions, SK Hynix offered the most straightforward possible answer.
One-day stock move: +5%
LOSERS
Meta
What happened: While Meta results showed that AI is improving ad targeting, engagement, and — most importantly — revenue, investors decided to fixate on the cost of it all. The company spent nearly $35 billion on capex last quarter, which contributed to negative free cash flow. It also raised the low end of its spending forecast to $135 billion.
One-day stock move: -7%
Alphabet
What happened: This was another case where the bad outweighed the AI-enabled good . Google Cloud revenue growth was strong, but Alphabet missed on basically everything else: sales, EPS, search, and the ad business, to name a few. A $51 billion quarterly capex tab and $9 billion in negative free cash flow didn’t help, either.
One-day stock move: -13%
Tesla
What happened: Tesla’s earnings beat couldn’t overcome a negative AI signal . The company cut its 2026 capex forecast, which investors interpreted as a possible warning that its robotaxi and Optimus ambitions aren’t growing fast enough.
One-day stock move: -3%
Caterpillar
What happened: Caterpillar’s slight sales and earnings beats weren’t enough to overcome skepticism around the company’s power-generation business, which links it to the AI buildout. The firm said overall revenue growth next quarter will be “moderate.” For a company that’s been one of the Dow’s top performers , the report wasn’t enough for investors.
One-day stock move: -9%
Amazon
What happened: The $77 billion that Amazon poured into property and equipment last quarter was way above analyst estimates. The company’s spending ultimately led to negative free cash flow of more than $40 billion. Investors chose to focus on this sizable capex bill, rather than a sixth straight quarter of accelerating sales growth for AWS.
One-day stock move: TBD
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